Niche marketer Specialty Catalog Corp. intends to take the company private through a sale and merger agreement with a current shareholder, the cataloger said Friday.
This is the second attempt at acquiring the direct marketing company in the past two years. In 1999, Golub Associates Inc., a New York-based investment company, announced plans to buy Specialty Catalog. The deal was terminated three months later “because conditions could not be satisfied on a timely basis,” company officials said at the time.
Specialty Catalog, South Easton, MA, now is to be sold to Specialty Acquisition Corp., a corporation formed by shareholder Guy Naggar. The deal is expected to close this summer. Last week the cataloger announced that Naggar had made the acquisition offer on condition that the company would merge with another company Naggar plans to form.
Naggar, who owns 29 percent of Specialty Catalog's stock, proposed to acquire the company for cash at $3.75 per share. The proposal represented a 43 percent premium on the $2.63 share price at closing on April 24, the last trading day before Naggar made his proposal.
The cataloger expects other shareholders and some members of the board of directors, as well as management, to join Naggar as stockholders of the newly formed company.
Specialty Catalog Corp. sells women's wigs and hairpieces through its catalogs, Paula Young and Especially Yours. The company was created in 1978 and circulates 25 million catalogs a year between the two titles.
